Conservation Minister Dr Nick Smith today inspected the site of the proposed Fiordlandmonorail, met with the applicants, and released official advice recommending he approve the project subject to extensive conditions.

“This ambitious $200 million project involves the building of the world’s longest monorail to enhance the experience of the hundreds of thousands of visitors travelling between Queenstown and Milford Sound,” Dr Smith says.

“I wanted to see for myself the areas affected by the construction of the two terminals and the 29.5-kilometre long, six-metre wide corridor that would be cleared to make way for the monorail through public conservation land. I also wanted to thoroughly scrutinise the impacts on the Snowdon Forest and its wildlife, as well as understanding the effects on the existing recreational users of the area.

“This monorail decision will be no easier than that of the Milford Tunnel. I am very protective of National Parks like Fiordland and this project has the advantage of being largely outside it. However, the monorail still requires clearance of a large area of forest on public conservation land.

This is a key point – that the monorail is almost entirely outside the Fiordland National Park itself.

Related posts:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 at 4:01 pm and is filed under NZ Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

We have huge amounts of locked up forest estate. So selective tourists routes like this, with a low-impact, are better than cutting roads. The Tran-Alpine trainline and road thru Arthurs Pass National park and Otira to the West Coast has not ended civilisation as we know it.

I don’t know how much it will reduce travel time to Milford, possibly little or not at all. It’s shorter but involves four modes of travel – catamaran, all terrain vehicle, monorail and then bus the last 90 km. All but the bus will be slower and you have to factor in the change between modes as well, which will include waiting time.

And then repeat in reverse order if doing the return trip from and to Queenstown.

Good decision from DOC. Makes it easier for the Minister to say yes. From memory Pete, it will probably knock a couple of hours off the return trip. 10 hours on a bus is pretty horrible – I’d happily pay more and get an experience. Hopefully we get to see it built sometime in the next couple of years and watch the tourists flock. There will no doubt be conditions imposed that mean if it ever goes bust there is a bond or insurance in place to remediate the land. Pretty sure it wouldn’t get approved without that condition, so can’t see any problem. It’s easy to be a whinger in this country, I credit these guys with actually wanting to achieve something.

While the land that the monorail will pass through is not national park, it doesn’t mean that the land has no value. I have personally hunted and tramped in the area, and in some ways the area is more enjoyable because it is not a national park. It isn’t flooded with tourists like the Routeburn and Milford tracks. The impacts of the monorail are also understated. It also requires a service road to run along side it. While it is development, it will also kill Te Anau businesses. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

All I see is another bunch of bludgers that are going to have their hands out for taxpayer ‘tourism’ funding, until the thing inevitably goes belly up and they piss off leaving us with the mess.
Bill, I understand the sentiment but I can guarantee you that there is no way the project would be financially feasible if they were required to be able to fully fund deconstruction and land remediation if they go bust. A bond would only ever be a fraction of the full cost, once they are bust they can’t be made to pay more and no insurer would go near that kind of deal it in a million years.

If people need get from Queenstown to Milford, why dont we just build a motorway? Four modes of transport seems excessive.

However my map of NZ pretty much has “thar be dragons” written on it for evrything south of the Bombays, (with exceptions for Rotorua and Wellington CBD) so i’m really not that stressed what happens as long as i don’t have to pay for it. Bet i do though.

Paul.
It is an amusing thought.
Key and Smith get their heads together and come up with a list of 10 Gween sensitive projects that all have ecconomic benifits for NZ and roll out one a month for the next 10 months and see if they can make Wussels head explode

Let’s get on with it. I have never been to Milford because of the mental length of the journey! a monorail, 4wd and a boat sounds brilliant and would quite happily pay for the privilege.
Buggar the Luddite Greens who oppose absolutely everything, if they had their way there wouldn’t even be a road into the place and it would lie undiscovered and NZ would be shy a million odd tourists each year as well as kiwis not able to really enjoy the reason why we live at the bottom of the earth and not somewhere a bit more exciting and lively.
No point living in paradise if you can’t see it too appreciate it.

Transmission gully approved and work starts February 2014. Yeah.
$200,000,000 hopefully invested in Fiordland to give an eco-friendly world class 5 star tourist experience.
Go on Give us a road from Milford to Haast to open up the West Coast.
Open the coal mine at Denniston.
Find platinum in Northland
Billions of dollars of hydrocarbons just waiting to be tapped into all over NZ.
Irrigation of the Canterbury Plains and East Cape
or elect the Greens. Thousands of jobs lost and the economy trashed Soviet style.
Clear choice next year.
Forwards or Backwards.
I choose Forward with National.

It would have been helpful showing a map showing where it is going. Because in the same statement saying it is largely outside the Park the Minister he says a large area is required to be cleared. The two “larges” are in conflict.

The term large is relative. It is a big park. I am all for protecting these places but this will just be a thread with minimal impact. Having more people access this beautiful wild place could assist its long term protection.

and then:
Rick Rowling (726) Says:
October 31st, 2013 at 8:30 am
There’s a perfectly good track that gets you to Milford in just 4 easy days walking. Don’t know why everybody’s in such a hurry these days. ***

Rick, that may be fine for you. But there are thousands of Kiwis, and hundreds of well heeled tourists, who cannot walk, do not want to walk, but have just as much right to enjoy every bit of NZ as the dipshits in the Federation of Mountain Clubs, clutching at “say no” straws on TV One this morning. Selfish bastard.

And then, because he and his she wolf were last night ambushing Palino (in the same way as he tried Key (ouch.. the slapping Campbell got is still visible) as are those administered by Bridges (similar to J Key)just wait until the disastrous Campbell / Mazda show tries their kill shot.

I have not seen the Cons Dept recommended conditions. But if they are reasonable, and do not adversely impact the viability of the whole project, let’s get it done – before lunch time.

The Greens will oppose due to risks to the environment. The oppose all economic development on these grounds. The only development they do not mind is low intensity agriculture with weeds everywhere as no sprays can be used and stock full of Luce and other parasites because the oppose drenches. This will not provide much work so the rest are on welfare staying in night shelters as they oppose subdivisions.

I agree with the chap on the TV this morning, who indicated he thought this would a death knell for all the current small tourist business operators spread across a larger area. This to me smacks of large corporate mentality which only has self serving interest in making maximum profit, at the expense of impacting others negatively.

A very closed shop with no spin off benefits to anyone else – after all, tourists who use this monorail will be tied to packages requiring them to stay in the lodgings provided by the same operators !

NZ tourism numbers in this particular area are not sufficiently large in number to warrant another (potentially) flakey enterprise – Have they even quantified the potential number of tourists preferring to use these new facilities

The Fiordland monorail proposal puts too much at risk and should not go ahead, Labour’s Conservation spokesperson Ruth Dyson says.

“The monorail will cut a swathe through significant areas of pristine beech forest and has the potential to lose the area its World Heritage status.

“The conservation and economic benefits of this proposal do not stack up and it should be declined. It requires a huge investment with equal financial risk.

“The wishes of locals have also been ignored. They have significant fears that the link will divert tourists away from an estimated 29 small communities potentially cutting off their economic livelihood.

“Given the continued murky swirl around the disappearance of the substantive submission from the Department of Conservation opposing the TRIM water management in the Tukituki River, the recommendations of Conservation officials to support this proposal needs close scrutiny.

“Conservation values, tourism, the security of our World Heritage status and the on-going viability of 29 towns are too important to sacrifice on a high risk private proposal. The monorail should be declined.

Sounds like Dyson is just on the opposition bandwagon, there’s nothing of substance in this.

The monorail concept is an exciting and innovative project which would provide access to this region for many tourists who ordinarily wouldn’t access this area. However Nic Smith rightly raised the question of the long term business sustainability of the project and that is are the projections accurate. Once installed the alterations to the landscape are difficult to remediate therefore the decision to proceed with the project has to have ahigh level of certainty that the project is financially viable.

Those above who are pro the monorail and the tunnel should get out from behind their computer screens and go and experience the virgin beech forest that Riverstone Holdings plan on putting a chainsaw through, before making such bigoted comments.

I agree with the chap on the TV this morning, who indicated he thought this would a death knell for all the current small tourist business operators spread across a larger area.

Oh, I dunno dave….The trampers will tramp & a couch potato like myself would actually consider going, ahem, “bush” if there were something like this to do the moving for me. It will enlarge the market, potentially everyone wins….there is always “collateral” damage when the business environment changes. People will just have to up their game.